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ECM tank
China developed the E.C.M. (Electronic Counter Measures) Tank to support its attacking tank legions. It utilizes a soft-kill jammer designed to deflect incoming projectiles in a small radius around the vehicle. Background This vehicle-based suite of electronic countermeasures protects advancing Chinese columns. A multi-frequency jammer effectively disrupts guided missile and rocket attacks, which can cause them to miss their targets. Its directed beam can also disable the electronics of vehicle units.Command & Conquer: Generals Zero Hour manual. Los Angeles, California: Electronic Arts Los Angeles, 2003. Abilities Game unit Strategy To disable vehicles, the ECM tank had to fire a focused jamming beam from a stationary position. If it lost its focus, the targeted enemy unit would re-activate. Therefore the ECM tank was purely an assistant in the elimination of hostiles. Having friendly units close to the tank was also a bad idea when the tank directed missiles away, as the missiles were still live and capable of damage friendlies. It was however, a frustrating task for GLA commanders attempting to use Rocket Buggies against them, especially against base defense with ECM tanks loitering near them. Despite lacking offensive weapons, the ECM Tank is still more than capable of crushing infantry and holding off against a sole vehicle with its jammer. Counters Unfortunately, the ECM tank needed to focus all of its power when jamming a vehicle, so when doing so missiles that would normally be disrupted would be able to continue as normal, allowing missile armed infantry to engage the tank. While it could escape small arms fire, if enemy tanks cornered one they could quickly finish it off. The ECM tank also had issues with disabling Overlord or Emperor tanks, as the sheer size of the vehicles made them very hard for a single ECM to disable, often taking a much longer time than the ECM could survive under fire from such tanks without support. Also if a vehicle such as a Battle Bus or a Humvee was loaded down with infantry, the infantry could still fire from their ports. Artillery that fired projectiles that were not missile based, such as those from the Inferno cannon also presented an issue, as they could not be deflected by the tank's jammer suite. Assessment Pros *Versatile support unit *Jams nearby missiles, which makes them miss their targets; even the Tomahawk and SCUD missiles can be jammed! *Can disable enemy vehicles; disabling USA vehicles will destroy its drone **Can disable multiple vehicles with micromanagement. Cons *Missile jamming is deactivated when disabling an enemy vehicle *Missile jamming may causes unexpected friendly fire. ** May divert missiles towards vulnerable artilery units behind him. ** May spread the EMP effect of EMP Patriot Systems' missiles. *Jammed SCUD missiles can still damage it due to its large blast radius *Larger vehicles takes longer to fully jam. *Non-missile projectiles cannot be jammed. *Cannot jam buildings, helpless against base defenses. *Cannot destroy any buildings or enemy vehicle units Selected Quotes See also * Microwave Tank - USA equivalent Trivia * The ECM Tank apparently had a jammer which disabled all enemy drones near itself. It was probably removed because the developers noticed it causes serious issues with friendly fire, which made the effect backfire. * Oddly enough, despite being unguided rockets in real life the ECM Tank can deflect "missiles" fired by GLA RPG Troopers. * In rare cases, the game would glitch and a vehicle shut down by an ECM tank would remain disabled after the tank had either switched targets or been destroyed, effectively making it a sitting duck. Exceptions are made, however, as infantry units within transport vehicles such as the Humvee, Battle Bus, and General Fai's Assault Troop Transport could still fire upon nearby threats. References Category:Zero Hour Chinese Arsenal Category:Tanks Category:Zero Hour vehicles